STEAMBOAT TRANSPORTATION on the RED Riveri

STEAMBOAT TRANSPORTATION ON THE RED RIVERi "STEAMBOAT 'round the bend!" was a cry heard not only on the Mississippi in the heyday of the river steamers. At one time it echoed up and down the muddy stretches of the Red River from Moorhead to Lake Winnipeg. Before 1859 men of Minnesota or of the Red River settlement shook their heads dubiously at the mere idea of navigating the tortuous Red River,^ but in the decade of the 1870's there were no less than seventeen steamers and hundreds of flat- boats floating on its muddy waters. The steamboat era on the Red, though scarcely two dec ades in length, wrote an important and colorful chapter into the history of both Minnesota and the Red River settlement which became Manitoba in 1870.* To Minnesotans it car ried a vast trade which might otherwise have followed the Selkirk settlers' route via Hudson Bay or gone over the Daw son Road from the Lake of the Woods in the footsteps of Colonel Garnet J. Wolseley's troops. To the Red River settlers it was a bridge to the mainland, marking the end of a virtual isolation. The steamboat was the answer to the pioneer's prayer for rapid, regular, and relatively cheap communication with the outer world. For six months of the year in the 1870's, the whistle of an approaching steamboat would bring crowds hurrying down to the dock at the foot of Post Office Street in Winni- 'The material for this article is drawn chiefly from files of Manitoba newspapers in the Manitoba Legislative Library, Winnipeg. ^John Macoun, Manitoba and the Great North-west, 579 (Guelph, Ontario, 1882). 'The first steamboat on the Red River was launched in 1859. The completion of the railway connection from St. Boniface to the American roads in 1878 virtually ended the rule of the steamboats, though they did not disappear from the river immediately. 245 246 MARION H. HERRIOT SEPT. peg. So eager were the citizens to claim their goods, that special police had to be appointed to prevent them from surg ing on board before the passengers disembarked. Out of the holds of the arriving steamers came everything from printing presses to church organs. The flour for the set tlers' daily bread and the oysters for their great feasts all floated down the river from Minnesota and the industrial East.* Passengers with strange faces and speaking foreign tongues crowded the rail of many a steamboat or barge, eagerly straining for a first view of their new home. And on the returning steamboats went the chief exports of a pio neer economy — furs and buffalo robes, and in 1876 the first trickle of Manitoba wheat.^ The settlement at the forks of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, incorporated as the city of Winnipeg in 1873, grew like a prairie weed in the 1870's. The population increased from 241 in 1871 to 7,985 in 1881. Stores, hotels, and large numbers of the inevitable saloons sprang up almost overnight. Winnipeg became the hub of a vast distribut ing system whose spokes reached out a thousand miles to the west, two hundred and fifty miles to the east, and four hun dred miles to the north. Much of the credit for this develop ment can be given to the steamboats from Minnesota. The people, goods, and materials that went into the building of the new province — everything from billiard tables to the "boss kitchen stove of the Province," weighing twelve hun dred pounds — went down the river by steamer.* *Manitoban (Winnipeg), April 29, 1871; Manitoba Free Press (Win nipeg), January 2, 1877; January 7, April 3, 1878. The daily edition of the Free Press is cited throughout, unless otherwise indicated. In 1877 Minnesota exported to Manitoba 31,373 barrels of flour valued at $148,443.00. The next year flour was not among the leading Minne sota exports to Manitoba. ^Nor'-Wester (Red River Settlement), June 15, 1861; Free Press, October 23, 1876; July 23, August 1, 1877. "Macoun, Manitoba, 680; George Bryce, Manitoba: Its Infancy, Growth, and Present Condition, 323 (London, 1882) ; Free Press, May 18, 1876; January 2, 1877. 1940 STEAMBOATING ON THE RED RIVER 247 The extent of the Manitoba-Minnesota trade in the decade of the 1870's can scarcely be realized without a glance at some figures. In 1876, according to a contempo rary newspaper report, Minnesota sent goods to the value of $802,400.00 into Manitoba, and forwarded over five mil lion pounds of bonded goods via the Red River Transporta tion Company's steamboats. Manitoba sent to Minnesota goods, chiefly furs, valued at $794,868.00. The Canadian province lacked $7,532.00 to balance its trade with Minne sota, not to mention the vast amount spent by Manitobans on freight charges for goods carried by the Red River Transportation Company — a Minnesota enterprise. For the next year, the Minnesota exports to Manitoba dropped to $768,415.00, but Manitoba lacked $266,659.00 to bal ance its trade with Minnesota. In addition, Manitoba shipped $197,361.00 worth of goods — chiefly buffalo robes, other furs, and wheat, the latter to the amount of ten thou sand bushels — through Minnesota in bond.^ The steamboats, in the years between 1859 and 1878, played a part in the lives of all dwellers along the Red River. They grew used to the shrill screech of the steamers' whis tles, and to their ungainly house-like appearance as they sailed past with stern wheels churning vigorously. Excur sions by steamboat became the fashion during the summer months. Sunday schools went on picnics by steamer. The garrison from Pembina paid a good-will visit to Winnipeg in 1877, arriving on the "International." The Masons of Winnipeg went by steamboat to Emerson to found a new lodge there. The " Keewatin," a Manitoba boat, periodi cally held moonlight excursions with dancing on board. An unusually elaborate excursion was staged in 1877, when the " Manitoba " went to Lake Winnipeg. The steamer was decorated with poplar trees that lined the rail and wild roses that bloomed in the fire buckets. It flew American, 'Free Press, January 2, 1877; January 7, 1878. 248 MARION H. HERRIOT SEPT. British, and French flags, and carried about a hundred and seventy excursionists on the trip.® From very small beginnings in 1859, the steamboats, shut tling up and down the river, wove themselves into the pattern of Red River life. Credit for placing the first steamboat on the Red River must go to the vision of the St. Paul Chamber of Commerce and the energy of Captain Anson Northup, a Mississippi steamboatman. Backed by an offer of two thou sand dollars from the St. Paul Chamber of Commerce, Cap tain Northup hauled overland in a very bitter winter the main parts of his boat, the " North Star," from the upper Mississippi. The boiler alone weighed eleven thousand pounds, and seventeen span of horses, thirteen yoke of oxen, and thirty men were needed to accomplish the Herculean task of transporting the outfit to Lafayette, a point on the Red River opposite the mouth of the Cheyenne. There in the spring of 1859 a hull was built, and probably sometime in May the first steamboat on the Red was launched. Bells pealed and cannon boomed when the " Anson Northup," as the boat had been named, flying an American flag at its bow and a Canadian one at its stern, sent the screech of its whistle echoing through the settlement at Fort Garry for the first time early in June, 1859.® "Free Press, July 28, 31, August 1, 12, 1876; June 18, 19, July 3, 4, 1877; August 23, September 9, 1878. ° See a letter of Russell Blakeley, dated December 9, 1877, and pub lished in the Free Press, December 17, 1877; Macoun, Manitoba, 579; Nor'-Wester, June 14, 1860. Blakeley was closely associated with the building of the "Anson Northup." Considerable disagreement exists as to the date of the boat's launching and first arrival at Fort Garry. May 17 and 19 and June 3 are given by different writers as the date of the launching, but most of them agree that the boat arrived at Fort Garry on June 5. Russell Blakeley, " Opening of the Red River of the North to Commerce and Civilization," in Minnesota Historical Collections, 8:48; George Bryce, A History of Manitoba, 198 (Toronto, 1906); Blakeley, in Free Press, December 17, 1877; Manton Marble, "To Red River and Beyond," in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, 21: 289 (Aug ust, 1860); William Douglas, "Yesterdays in Manitoba," in Free Press, March 16, 1935; F. H. Schofield, The Story of Manitoba, 1: 196 (Win nipeg, 1913). 1940 STEAMBOATING ON THE RED RIVER 249 Photographs of the "Anson Northup" show a stern- wheeler, rather ungainly in appearance, and somewhat difli- cult to navigate, according to a Nor'-Wester correspondent, who commented humorously: "The boat has such an ex traordinary affection for the shore that at times no amount of rudder and wheel can cure her headstrong and landward fancies." He also quoted Captain C. P. V. Lull, skipper of the "Anson Northup" in September, 1860, who character ized the boat as " nothing better than a lumbering old pine- basket. Sir, which you have to handle as gingerly as a hamper of eggs." The steamer had three decks. On top was the hurricane deck and pilothouse, which was the only cool place on the boat, according to J.J. Hargrave, a passenger at one time. The main deck contained four staterooms to accommodate ladies up to the number of twelve, and a cabin in which there were twenty-four berths separated only by cur tains.

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